When we think of the people in charge of nomenclature (which you just can’t stop us doing), we tend to picture stuffy old men with moon-silver hair and spectacles so thick as to be basically bulletproof, and, to be fair, this is mostly the case… but not always. So you might be interested to know which celestial body was named by an 11-year-old schoolgirl.
One spring morning of 1930, Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl, was helping herself to a spot of breakfast in her parent’s Oxford abode. Her grandfather Falconer Madan sitting close by leafing through the day’s issue of the Times of London.
When he stumbled across news of a new-found celestial body in his newspaper. He asked his granddaughter what she’d name it if given the chance, to which she replied, “Why not call it Pluto?”.
How Did An 11-Year-Old Schoolgirl End Up Naming Pluto?
Okay, so you’re probably wondering how this conversation between granddad and granddaughter led to her suggestion actually being used to name the planet Pluto, so let’s get to the bottom of it.
Falconer Madan may have looked like an ordinary granddad. Before he retired to enjoy the golden years of his life in the company of his granddaughter, he was the head of the Bodleian Library at none other than the prestigious University of Oxford.
During his tenure in this position, he befriended an astronomer who frequented the historic library. When little Venetia suggested the new planet be named Pluto, he decided to pass it on to said friend.
It just so happened that colleagues of this astronomer were working in the Arizona observatory responsible for the new planet’s discovery. He forwarded the idea to them, and after a unanimous vote, Pluto was chosen as its name forever and always.
How Did Venetia Burney Come Up With “Pluto”?
As the granddaughter of the head of the second-largest library in the UK, Vernetia Burney was incredibly well-read and studious for an 11-year-old.
What’s more, she had been studying planetary order with her classmates at school. While doing so she developed a penchant for ancient mythology. As such, she was well-versed in options when asked to suggest a name.
Being that she didn’t know anything about the yet unnamed planet, besides perhaps its position as the 9th planet. She didn’t have much to work with, but the distance of this celestial body was all that was needed. This detail led to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, to mind.
Pluto, the infamous dog of Disney debuted that very same year. There was speculation that she’d heard the name on a cartoon and repeated it to her grandfather. However, this is incorrect.
She disliked the allegations that she lifted the name from a cartoon dog. She remarked once, “It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet rather than the other way round. So, one is vindicated.”
Who Discovered Pluto?
We mentioned earlier that it was someone at the Flagstaff Arizona observatory who discovered Pluto. That person was Clyde Tombaugh. However, in truth, this was more of a rediscovery. Percival Lowell – the observatory’s founder – had snapped a photo of the ninth planet decades earlier.
The crazy thing is that he didn’t realize that he’d accomplished his mission in his snapping that photo. This was despite it being one of his primary goals in life. Also, the planet’s existence had been speculated on since the mid-1800s.
Before being discovered, Pluto was postulated to explain the wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
Percival Lowell died roughly a year after the photo was taken. The trail to find the elusive ninth planet went cold until Clyde Tombaugh emerged on the scene.
Tombaugh, the son of Kansas farmers, dreamed of going to college. However, after a brutal hail storm killed their crops, the family fell on hard times. His dreams seemed to be destined to remain just that.
Yet, he didn’t give up on his passion for learning. Instead choosing to teach himself geometry and trigonometry to build his own telescopes.
So impressive were his homegrown efforts to observe the solar system, that when he sent his sketches of the planets to the Flagstaff observatory, they offered him a job!
With only enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Arizona, he daringly accepted. When he arrived, he inherited Lowell’s old mission… finding a trans-Neptunian planet.
It took a year of painstaking observations – thankfully with better equipment than Lowell had access to – but Tombaugh completed the task on March 13, 1930. This would have been Lowell’s 75th birthday. News of the existence of a ninth planet was released to the world.
The discovery was printed in newspapers around the globe, waiting to be read by one Mr. Falconer Madan.
A Dream Come True
Clyde Tombaugh’s celestial discovery made him quite the celestial himself. Overnight, the young man became the astronomy world’s biggest star, and with the notoriety came an opportunity he’d been waiting for his whole life.
His hometown university offered him a full scholarship. After completing it, he became a military researcher and astronomy professor, fulfilling his childhood goal to the fullest extent.
So respected was he within the astronomy community, and so deep was his love for this field of science, that after he passed in 1997, an ounce of his ashes was taken onboard during the 2006 New Horizons launch.
Why Did Lowell Observatory Vote For Pluto?
The folks at Lowell Observatory agreed with Venetia. The untraversable distance between the living realm and the afterlife was a fitting metaphorical representation of the mind-boggling distance between Earth and the ninth planet.
What’s more, with the first two letters of Pluto aligning with the initials of its true discoverer and founder of the observatory, Percival Lowell, it seemed like the only reasonable choice.
Final Thoughts
Lowell was something of an outcast in the scientific community for positing that aliens might build canals on Mars. It’s only fitting that the ultimate outcast planet was fated for eventual demotion to the rank of dwarf planet.
“Pluto”, of course, was the most fitting name for this distant celestial, and for it, we have a precocious schoolgirl to thank. Thank you, Venetia!
Hi, my name is Jason Anderson, and I am a Physics Professor. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated with space, the universe, the moon, you name it. I spent hours and hours at the planetarium close to my hometown, wondering what else could be out in the universe.
Since then, I’ve been an avid stargazer and astronomer, and love nothing more than spending my time charting stars, observing planets, and finding constellations.
This is why I decided to start Telescope Guru. I only wish to share this fun pastime with the world. With this site, I hope to answer all of your questions relating to astronomy, telescopes, and stargazing.
